Hi Gunbunny. Actually, I believe ALL the pieces of a system are very important. It will only be as good as your weakest component. And I agree with some of the other members here that it is your Yamaha.
3 1/2 years ago I dove into HT building a system around a Marantz AV550 pre/pro and an ATI AT1505 amp. Even though I never owned a single piece of high end 2-channel gear in my life, I KNEW this setup wasn't cutting it for me musically.
For the last two years I have been bitten by the audio bug big time! I still have my original HT gear, but have built a separate music system all together. Musically the two systems shouldn't even be compared.
My feeling is that when you replace your preamp and possibly your amp sometime in the future, then you'll really see how good your Soliloquy 5.3s are. You'll be amazed. Another option though is to get a preamp with HT pass through and use the Yamaha's amp for both music and HT.
I'm sorry this isn't what you wanted to hear, but I learned a few years back that for me I could never get satisfying music from an HT system. And I feel a bit guilty in suggesting you take this path because if you get snagged like me, you'll end up spending way more than you ever thought you would. Buy used gear if you can.
Good luck!
3 1/2 years ago I dove into HT building a system around a Marantz AV550 pre/pro and an ATI AT1505 amp. Even though I never owned a single piece of high end 2-channel gear in my life, I KNEW this setup wasn't cutting it for me musically.
For the last two years I have been bitten by the audio bug big time! I still have my original HT gear, but have built a separate music system all together. Musically the two systems shouldn't even be compared.
My feeling is that when you replace your preamp and possibly your amp sometime in the future, then you'll really see how good your Soliloquy 5.3s are. You'll be amazed. Another option though is to get a preamp with HT pass through and use the Yamaha's amp for both music and HT.
I'm sorry this isn't what you wanted to hear, but I learned a few years back that for me I could never get satisfying music from an HT system. And I feel a bit guilty in suggesting you take this path because if you get snagged like me, you'll end up spending way more than you ever thought you would. Buy used gear if you can.
Good luck!